Search watoday:

Search in:

NSW daring to dream of Shield final

Joe Barton

A five-star performance from NSW's bowling contingent against South Australia on Friday gave the Blues renewed hope of making next week's Sheffield Shield final.

And the Blues, who secured first innings points before claiming four Redbacks wickets before stumps on day two, admit they've got one eye on the games unfolding around the country to know where exactly they stand.

South Australia are 4-93, holding a 56-run second innings lead, but last-placed NSW know that even with an outright victory they aren't assured of a spot in the final.

For that to happen they would need Tasmania to not defeat Victoria outright and for Western Australia and Queensland draw - with both games in the balance with two days to play.

Advertisement

"We're sort of watching the other games here and there and finding out scores, but we're really trying to focus on our game and trying to go about getting these six points," Blues paceman Josh Hazlewood (2-25) told AAP.

Hazlewood claimed two second innings wickets as the Redbacks crumbled to be 3-22 on a day in which the Blues' bowlers dominated with both bat and ball.

After restricting the Redbacks to just 182 on Thursday, NSW's bowlers might have felt they'd earned a rest - but that was not on offer as their batsmen suffered a massive collapse to slump from 1-68 to 6-95 during the middle session.

A lower order recovery, led by Stephen O'Keefe, Trent Copeland and Gurinder Sandhu, carried the Blues to 219 and earned them first-innings points.

Then before bad light finished play early Hazlewood, Sandhu and Chris Tremain all struck.

Callum Ferguson (23no) and Jake Brown (21no) are the unbeaten batsmen who stand in the way of a Blues outright victory.

The going is very tough on a wicket offering seam bowlers so much that South Australian skipper Johan Botha chose to send down medium pace rather than his offspin.

Hazlewood expects the wicket to flatten out in the next two days, but thinks there will still be enough juice for the bowlers on Saturday morning.

"The first two hours are going to be good to bowl on," he said.

"If we can crack them open and get the tail in tomorrow morning we're a good chance of knocking them over."

Botha would've been impressed when his pace duo Chadd Sayers (5-53) and Gary Putland (3-66) combined to spark a 5-27 collapse - but will be cursing their lack of a killer blow.

O'Keefe (46), Sandhu (45) and Copeland (40), who combined to take seven first-innings wickets, mixed boundaries with nudges to give the Blues a respectable first-innings total.

It's not all bad news for South Australia - an outright victory would ensure them a place in the final, and might even be enough for them to host.